MEDICAGOL.MEDICK

MEDICAGOL. - MEDICK

Scientific Description:

Annual or perennial herbs, rarely shrubs, not smelling of coumarin. Leaves pinnately trifoliolate; leaflets usually toothed; stipules shortly adnate to petiole, entire or toothed. Racemes axillary, pedunculate, few-many-flowered, or flowers solitary. Flowers small, pedicellate, bracteate, with tripping mechanism for pollination. Calyx short, tubular or campanulate, 5-toothed. Corolla yellow (except in Medicago sativa L. and its hybrids). Stamens diadelphous. Fruits mostly indehiscent, usually spirally coiled, sometimes straight or falcate; dorsal (non-ovuliferous) suture often furnished with tubercles or spines, ventral (ovuliferous) suture only exceptionally winged or fringed. Seeds 1−many, small, rarely ridged or tuberculate, somewhat reniform. Cotyledons (in seedling) swollen at base. There has been much difference of opinion concerning the generic limits between Medicago and Trigonella.

Reference:

Heyn CC & Davis PH (1970). Medicago L., In: Davis PH (ed.) Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 3: 483.

Public Description:

Medicago, known as “medick”, is a genus of annual or perennial herbs, rarely shrubs, and is native to Mediterranean basin. There are approximately 103 species in the world and 51 species (64 taxa) in Türkiye. They have important ecological interactions with other organisms. This stuation is known as “symbiosis” between plants and nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Medick species are used as food plants by the larvae of some insect herbivores. The best-known member of the genus is alfalfa (Medicago Sativa L.), an important forage crop.

References:

Anonymous 1 (2016). https:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicago/, Accessed date: 09.02.2016.

Anonymous 2 (2016). https:/gobotany.newenglandwild.org/genus/medicago/, Accessed date: 09.02.2016.

Anonymous 3 (2016). http:/www.theplantlist.org/1.1/browse/A/Leguminosae/Medicago/, Accessed date: 09.02.2016.

Keskin M (2012). Medicago L., In: Güner, A., Aslan, S., Ekim, T., Vural, M. & Babaç, M.T. (eds.), Türkiye Bitkileri Listesi (Damarlı Bitkiler). Nezahat Gökyiğit Botanik Bahçesi ve Flora Araştırmaları Derneği Yayını. İstanbul, pp. 473–477.